


Something Stupid Like Fate

by smartalli



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Harvey just wants Mike in his clothes, M/M, Mike just wants not to be a screw up, Original Female Characters - Freeform, Soulmates, pilot AU, soul marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 06:45:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4381400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartalli/pseuds/smartalli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU. It’s estimated that at any one time, five to six thousand people around the world are Marked. Supposedly it means you’re special. Blessed. Chosen. Mike’s heard it all. He’s never felt it. His life is no fairy tale. Frankly, neither is Harvey’s.</p>
<p>Sometimes the universe knows what it’s doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Stupid Like Fate

It’s small, no larger than a quarter, the color of a deep red wine. Mike’s never measured it, never wanted to. Never catalogued it, the way some do, noting every tiny detail. It’s grown with him, becoming clearer in shape as he got older until it finally settled on the shape it is now.

It sits on the back of Mike’s left shoulder, easily hide able, easily ignorable, unless someone looks for it. And no one ever does. That just isn’t done. He had a girlfriend in high school who caught a glance of it and became obsessed with it, drew a matching mark on her hand in magic marker she refused to wash off, parading it around with her big mouth like she could shoulder her way into being a Marked by sheer force, pushing Mike out into the public eye without his consent.

Every single person he’d grown up with started treating him differently, and Mike started looking for new and creative ways to escape, to disappear into Manhattan or the Bronx or Greenwich Village, looking to get lost in a sea of people who weren’t the slightest bit interested in some high school kid ditching school to stand in the Met and stare at _Wheat Field with Cypresses_ for the second time that week.

(Mike and Jen didn’t date for long.)

Mike himself almost never looks at his Mark, except for the occasional stray glance in the mirror in the morning, after his shower. His pinked up skin does nothing to hide the deep red splash of color, not that Mike makes much of an effort now. He’s heard of all the ways the others do, covering their marks up with makeup, with bright tattoos, with bracelets or scarves. Mike’s slips out of view under a simple t-shirt, but he’s not really hiding it. He’s just never looked good in a tank top.

As far as he’s concerned, it’s just not worth mentioning. It’s something that’s always been there, and always will be, the deep red a signal to all that someone else is out there, somewhere, with the same mark, on the same particular spot on their left shoulder, alive and kicking. Breathing. Living their life. Supposedly it means he’s special. Blessed. Chosen. He’s heard it all. He’s never felt it. 

(He will admit to his eyes lingering on it every once in a while in the steamy bathroom mirror, stomach unknotting when he finds his mark is still as deep red as ever. He read a story last week of a young woman found dead in her bathtub with her wrists slit open, right over her unmistakably black, leaf shaped mark. They say a part of you just dies when your mark changes. He wonders how long she held out before she just couldn’t take the emptiness, the pain, any longer.)

The official statistic released by The Center claims that at any one time, five to six thousand people around the world are Marked. That’s twenty-five hundred to three thousand pairs of people considered so special that their weddings, dates, the births of their children are reported as the lead story on the nightly news. There are books written about them, movies about their lives, famous pieces of art worth hundreds of millions of dollars hanging in the Met, the Louvre, the MOMA about their unbreakable, unshakeable connection. They’re the fairy tales parents tell their children at night. 

But that doesn’t really explain everything.

The Center doesn’t admit there’s a good chance you’ll never meet your Fated, especially if they never register their mark, or if they’re born halfway around the world, or if their mark is so small, in such a strange place, that they never even notice it’s there. Close to twenty-five percent of Marked people die having never met their other half.

The Center doesn’t publicize the Marked who reject their Fated before they’ve ever met, the ones who die in infancy, the man who couldn’t handle his Fated being another man and gutted him like a fish.

Being Marked is a fairy tale, except when it’s not.

And Mike’s life has never been confused for a fairy tale.

It’s a stupid choice to make, Mike knows it even as he’s making it, but he doesn’t think he has any other option. It’s a little like being backed into a corner while a bloodthirsty German Shepherd yanks on its fully stretched out chain, coming an inch away from biting your face off. Grammy needs full time care, and somehow he needs to pay for it. Taking a few more tests under someone else’s name isn’t going to get him there by Saturday.

The suit isn’t his, and the briefcase is heavy in his hand. It gets even heavier as he dashes through the hallways and up the stairs at the Chilton, hoping his months spent peddling a bike up and down the streets of Manhattan will tip the scales in his favor. Mike isn’t that lucky.

He’s never been that lucky.

As the cop behind him pushes him up against the wall, pressing his cheek against the smooth surface, all Mike can think about is Grammy. She deserves so much more than a convict for a grandson, more than a state home for the elderly. She’ll die in there, and it’s all Mike’s fault.

He sighs as the briefcase is wrenched out of his hand. He’s a shitty excuse for a grandson.

A man in a suit steps out of the room next to them, no doubt searching out the source of the commotion. He’s good looking, striking, but Mike doesn’t really have time to think about that at the moment, what with his cheek pressed so tightly against the wall. The man lifts an eyebrow at Mike, at the cops behind him, at the briefcase currently open, pot sitting out in plain sight, and Mike just blinks in response. He knows enough not to speak, even when the cop with the briefcase starts to berate him, starts to throw out an idea of exactly what Mike’s life is going to look like from here on out. Mike may be many things, but he’s not an idiot.

Briefcase Cop presses his lips together when Mike refuses to respond, motions for his buddy to lift Mike off the wall. The dude in the suit is still standing there, looking at him, hands in his pockets. Mike meets his eye until the cop behind him pushes him forward with a hand in the middle of his shoulder blades and starts frog-marching Mike down the hallway, his hands cuffed behind him. 

They make him wait for hours at the station after he’s processed, cuffed to a table in an interrogation room with broken air conditioning. It’s exactly like a really bad crime show, and Mike would laugh if his situation weren’t so shitty. Possession with intent. He’s looking at a few years, minimum. The air conditioner gives a pitiful rattle before giving up the fight for good, and Mike shifts as a bead of sweat runs down his temple.

“Mike....Ross.” 

He looks up at Briefcase Cop when he enters the room, manila folder in his hands. He sets a sweating can of Coke on the table and sits down in the chair across from Mike, leaning forward in his chair and sighing in a fatherly show of concern. An odd and slightly off-putting choice, since he can’t be more than ten years or so older than Mike, at the most. He pops the top on the soda, nudging it towards him and his cuffed hands and Mike just stares at it, smiles to himself. It’s such an obvious ploy, and he wonders if anyone ever falls for it.

“I looked into you, Mike. You know what I found? Nothing.”

Of course he didn’t. There’s nothing to find he’s ever been caught for. Or even accused of, for that matter.

“And yet today at the Chilton I run into you with a briefcase full of drugs. How did that happen? How did a good kid suddenly wind up with a briefcase of pot?”

Mike isn’t a kid. Mike is a twenty-six year old screwup in a borrowed suit, currently handcuffed to an interrogation room table. If he expects to get anywhere, he should probably look at adjusting his tactic a little.

“See, Mike, I don’t think you’re the guy I really want. I think you’re just some low kid on the totem pole, and they threw you to the wolves. You know what’s about to happen to you? What kind of future you’re looking at? It isn’t good.” He clasps his hands together, smiles a little sadly at him, and Mike sighs internally. “But I can help you, Mike. I can help you if you help me.”

“Don’t say anything.”

Mike must be hallucinating. He must be. Why else would the man in the suit from the hotel hallway be standing in the doorway to his interrogation room right now?

He also needs to learn some of their names. Calling them Suit Guy and Briefcase Guy is getting a little old.

“Not one word.” His eyes fall on the other man in the room, now standing. “Detective...?”

“Cordero.”

“Detective Cordero. Un-cuff my client.”

He does it, but he clearly isn’t happy about it, and Mike rubs at his wrists when the cuffs are finally pulled away. It’s a strange knee jerk of an instinct, considering he’s never had cuffs on before. His wrists don’t even hurt.

When Cordero leaves them, the Suit sits down in the vacated chair, crossing his legs, lacing his fingers together. Mike shrugs off his ill-fitting suit jacket, rolls his sleeves up past his elbows, leans forward with his hands on the table. “Who are you?”

“I’m your lawyer.”

“I’ve never met you before.”

“Sure you have. In the hallway at the Chilton. We had a moment. It was beautiful.”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Why not?”

He wants to tell him _because this isn’t how these things work_. He wants to say _because I’m not that lucky_. He doesn’t say either of these things.

“Because there’s no way I can afford you.”

“Maybe I’m a public defender.”

Mike snorts. Yeah. _Okay_. “No you’re not.”

“How do you know that?”

Mike sighs. “Because your suit is worth more than everything I own put together. _Why_ do you want to help me?”

“Because I do. That should be good enough.”

“Phrases like that always end with guys like me indebted to the mob, or missing organs, or getting sold as mail-order brides or something.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Mail-order brides?”

Mike rubs at his eyes. _Ugh._ “Whatever, it’s not my best material. I’m not exactly having the best day, here.”

“Which is where I come in. Did you tell them anything?”

“No. I’m not an idiot.”

“You were caught with a briefcase of pot. I’d argue otherwise.”

Mike huffs, frustrated, and pushes back from the table. “Look, I don’t even know why you’re bothering. They caught me with the pot, it’s enough to claim intent to distribute, end of story. I doubt I’m going to be walking away from this one. It’s not a case you can win.”

“Let me worry about that.”

Mike slumps back in his chair.

“Now, why were you carrying a briefcase full of pot?”

“Didn’t you hear the cops? I was intending to sell it.”

“Let me rephrase: you aren’t a drug dealer. So either you’re covering for someone, or you needed a decent amount of money, fast. Which is it?”

Mike looks up, meets his eyes, looks away just as quickly.

“Start talking.”

Mike folds his arms over his chest.

“Let’s try this again. I’m not the cops. My job is to keep you out of prison. If you want to do that, start talking. Now.”

He leans forward, focuses on the can of soda in front of him, on the drop of water making a quick slide down the side of the can. He drags his finger through the condensation. “My grandmother’s in a nursing home. I need to come up with twenty-five grand in two days, or they’re kicking her out and moving her to a state funded home.”

“And a buddy convinced you all you had to do was carry a briefcase somewhere and you’d get exactly what you needed. Easy money. Only you aren’t that stupid.”

“You sure about that?”

“He must be a very good friend for you not to flip on him. Who is he? Brother? Cousin? Best friend?” Mike must’ve flinched or blinked or _breathed wrong_ or something, because Suit says, a note of finality in his voice, “Best friend.”

“This isn’t about him.”

“Of course it is. He preyed on you. Hell of a friend you’ve got there.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t know me. You don’t know him.”

His response is purely reactive, but he’s feeling stripped, peeled apart, and _he still doesn’t know who the fuck this guy is_.

“You think I take just anyone on? That I haven’t done my due diligence? I know what I need to know. The rest you’re going to tell me.”

“How would I know that? I don’t know what you do, who you are. I don’t even know what the hell your _name_ is.”

Mike is impatient, defeated. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He doesn’t want to be in this stupidly hot room, wearing Trevor’s stupid borrowed suit, with this stupidly evasive guy who’s still looking perfectly composed in his buttoned up Madison Avenue suit. 

“I’m Harvey Specter.” He stands, looks at his watch. "And if I work quickly, I can get you arraigned today, before the judge goes home.”

He sighs. “What’s the point?”

“I wasn’t aware you were interested in spending the night in jail.”

“I don’t see much choice. There’s no way I’m going to be able to afford the bail.”

“Let me worry about that.”

Mike slumps down in his chair, pushes the still full can of soda across the top of the metal table with one finger slowly, eyes fixed on the shining trail of water it leaves behind.

He can’t go back, but just for a moment he wishes he could sleep through this part. He knew he was a screw up – getting kicked out of college on a full ride pretty much cemented that. He’s just never thought he’d fuck up so badly there’d be judges and lawyers and bail money he couldn’t cover. He never thought he’d fuck up so badly, he couldn’t come back from it.

Harvey gets them squeezed into the docket just before the judge goes home, and Mike stands there next to Harvey in a basically empty courtroom behind the defendant’s table and has the fleeting, pointless thought that courtrooms look a lot bigger on TV.

The strangest part is that even though technically this arraignment is all about him, very little of it actually requires his input. The judge asks if Harvey waives the reading, and he does, and then she slips her glasses on and takes her time reading the file in front of her. The prosecutor talks for a bit, and Mike takes none of it in. But he feels Harvey’s eyes on him for a brief moment, reminding him of the last thing he said to him before the bailiff announced his case. 

_You’re not a fucking martyr. Act like you give a shit about your own life._

“Your honor, the people request bail be set at twenty thousand. Michael Ross presents a direct danger to the community.”

The judge lifts an eyebrow, and Harvey’s head snaps to the left. He says, incredulously, “Are you kidding?”

It’s an absolutely ridiculous amount, even Mike knows that. They’re making an example of him – a mid 20s white kid arrogant enough to dirty up their streets and make addicts of their kids.

“Harvey.”

Harvey turns his focus back to the judge. “Mike Ross is a first-time offender with ties to the community. He has a grandmother in full-time care that he has no interest in abandoning. He poses zero flight risk. We request he be released on his own recognizance.”

The judge sits back, eyes them all before she finally nods and pulls off her glasses, laying them down on her desk.

“I’m setting bail at five thousand.”

And that’s it – it’s all over in a matter of minutes and the bailiff is leading Mike off, back to jail, where he’ll wait in custody for bail that he can’t afford to pay.

Except he’s sitting in jail for approximately fifteen minutes when a cop comes to get him to tell him bail’s been posted. 

Nothing about this day is going the way he expected.

“Harvey?”

“I told you I had it covered. Let’s go.”

Harvey leads him out and down a set of steps to a waiting car with a driver standing next to the open door. He slips in, and the driver shuts the door behind him, circles around the car to the driver’s side and steps in. Mike stands there, on the sidewalk, staring at the closed door until Harvey lowers the window just far enough to give Mike a look bordering on impatient.

“Get in.” Mike starts to object and he says, “Get. In.”

Mike has a feeling Harvey doesn’t take the word no well. From anyone.

He reaches for the handle and Harvey says, “Other side,” before looking away and raising the window.

Mike slumps into the back of the car, reaches for the seat belt, and Harvey directs the driver to take them home. Mike doesn’t even object, doesn’t have it in him. He just sits there, leans his head against the window, and stares out at the buildings passing him by, Coltrane playing on the car stereo.

“I don’t have five thousand dollars.”

He mumbles it, says it just as much to himself as he does to Harvey but Harvey doesn’t respond, instead says something to the driver about the album that’s playing, ignoring Mike entirely. 

It’s a short ride before the car is stopping and Harvey’s stepping out – still without a word to Mike, who quickly reaches for his own door and gets out of the car. He joins him on the sidewalk then looks up and around, down the street both directions, trying to get his bearings. Right...he needs to go right to get to the nearest subway station.

He shifts on his feet, looks away in that direction briefly, licks lips he didn’t even realize were dry until right that moment. “I’m that way, so...um... we need to exchange information. Do you have a card, or...”

The car pulls away and Harvey stares at him for a beat before gesturing with his open hand to the front of the building. “After you.”

Mike starts to object but stops when Harvey lifts an eyebrow and tilts his head. Mike throws up his hands and walks into the building. At this point, he doesn’t know what else to do. None of this has been his choice, his own life is out of his hands, and Harvey withholding information? Making all these decisions without his say? It’s getting old. Fast. 

He follows him across the lobby, follows him into the elevator, follows him down the hall, follows him into what’s definitely not a legal office of any kind, follows him like he’s a fucking Pied Piper and Mike is powerless to simply turn around and walk the other direction. The thought cuts Mike a little too close and he ignores it, pushes it away.

He stands in the middle of the room, next to a sleek, modern, fully decked out kitchen and starts rubbing his face with his hands.

“Are you in the habit of bringing clients into your home?”

“No. You’re the first.” 

He sounds... _amused_...and for some reason it’s that more than anything else that’s happened today that rubs Mike the wrong way.

“Will you just _stop_?”

When Mike pulls his hands away from his face, he finds Harvey standing quietly, looking at him, his smile gone. 

“You bring me up here with a wink and a nod, like I’m supposed to know why, but _how_ am I supposed to know? You tell me how to plea, you tell me when to shut up, but you won’t _tell me anything_. You don’t know me. Why the hell would you do any of this?”

“You need a reason?”

“I need a reason to trust you.”

“Getting you out of jail wasn’t reason enough?”

“Yeah...about that. I can’t pay you back. So if you’re expecting a check, I’ll have to post-date it about ten years.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “I promise not to hold my breath.”

“No more bullshit, Harvey. What are you getting out of this?”

“I have a certain amount of pro bono work that needs to be done every year. Taking your case benefits me as much as it does you.”

“Lawyers aren’t required to do pro bono.”

Harvey tilts his head, seems to consider Mike for a moment. “If you work at my firm, you do. And I’m a little behind. My boss is getting antsy.”

Mike nods, relaxes just a bit. It makes sense, far more than the idea of Harvey simply doing it out of the kindness of his heart. Sharks in four thousand dollar suits don’t do anything out of the kindness of their hearts.

“So what else do you need from me?”

“How did you know lawyers weren’t required to do pro bono work?”

Mike sighs. He’s doing that a lot today. “I like to read.”

“You like to read.”

It’s said with no small amount of disbelief and incredulity, and Mike says, “Yeah, I like to read. And what I read I don’t forget. At one point I thought I might be a lawyer.” He looks up, steels himself. He can’t believe he’s admitting this to him. “So I read just about any legal book I could get my hands on.”

“What happened?”

Mike eyes him. “You did your due diligence. You tell me.”

That makes Harvey smile a little, and something seems to spark in his eye, something Mike doesn’t know him well enough to read correctly. “You were kicked out of school on a full ride.”

Mike’s answering grin is big and fake and makes his stomach hurt. “That’s right. You backed a screw up. You’re not gonna win this one.”

Harvey simply looks at him. “I like my chances.”

“You like your chances.” Mike mutters and runs a hand roughly over his hair. “Unbelievable.”

He turns away, looks around the room. It’s a big, open space, lots of floor to ceiling windows, leather, sleek surfaces. They match, Harvey Specter and his high-rise condo. 

A cold beer is pressed into Mike’s hand and he looks up to see Harvey walk by and disappear through a nearby doorway. Mike stares after him. “....thanks?”

He sighs, takes a sip from the opened bottle. The beer isn’t bad – some microbrew from upstate – and Mike picks at the paper label as he walks toward the massive windows. He leans against the sill, watches some lights flip on in a building across the street, pulls at his collar as a woman toes off her heels. His borrowed suit is making him too warm, making him feel more out of place than he already does, but there’s nothing he can do about it. There’s nothing he can do about any of this but go along with whatever Harvey wants him to do, and continue wearing someone else’s suit. 

He laughs and presses the sweating beer in his hand to his forehead.

“You should get out of that suit.”

“I don’t exactly have a change of clothes.”

He takes a sip, looks at the shadowy reflection of Harvey’s face in the window.

“It doesn’t fit you.”

Mike sighs, turns around to rebut, and finds Harvey behind him, holding up a small stack of folded clothes. He eyes them. “None of what you’re doing is normal.”

“These will fit better than that suit.”

“You’re not listening to me.”

He holds the clothes up a little higher, says, “I wasn’t aware you wanted to be sitting in jail right now. If that’s what normalcy would get you, I think you’re vastly overrating its importance.”

Mike laughs softly, takes the clothes. He has a point.

“Are you hungry?”

This is all absurd. So fucking absurd. And Mike decides...you know what? Fuck it. Whatever all this is, he’s going to ride it out to the end. “Yeah, I could eat.”

Harvey heads over to the kitchen and Mike follows just far enough to set the beer down on the coffee table and the clothes on the sofa. He tugs at the tie, yanks off the jacket, and with every layer coming off, starts to feel a little bit better. He’s down to his boxers and nothing else when he looks up and notices Harvey watching him, a smile tugging at his lips.

“There’s a fireplace behind you if you feel like burning that thing.”

He scratches his neck. “It’s not mine. I don’t think I get to decide its fate.” He picks up the jacket with a finger under the collar, holds it up. “On the other hand, I was arrested in it, so...”

“Sounds like a valid argument to me.”

He drops the jacket back on the sofa, picks up the sweats Harvey gave him and slips them on, right leg first. As he tugs them up over his ass, something occurs to him. Harvey getting Mike on the docket that night wasn’t just about getting him out of jail. “You knew the judge.”

Harvey looks up from the cutting board, where he’s chopping tomatoes. He smiles a little, almost like he’s _proud_ Mike made that connection himself. “Yes.”

“You knew she was on shift and you knew she wouldn’t set bail as high as the prosecutor wanted.”

“My wallet hoped she’d let you go with no bail at all, but I’ll take five thousand.”

“We would’ve gotten another judge. If we’d taken any longer we would have missed her, and we would have gotten another judge.” Harvey nods, and Mike knows exactly what he isn’t saying. “You knew who the next judge would’ve been. And they would’ve tried to make an example out of me.”

Harvey stops chopping, lays the knife down. “William Benthurst has a thing for making examples out of kids who make stupid mistakes.”

“I’m not a kid, Harvey.”

“He would’ve overlooked that. A twenty-something would’ve been good enough for him.”

Mike knows it’s true, just as he knows that what he says next is long overdue.

“Thank you.”

Harvey nods. “You’re welcome.”

“Tell me what I can do to help.”

Harvey smiles, gives him a slow, long look. “You can start by putting your shirt on.”

Mike looks down at his naked chest, gives his stomach a little rub. “Am I distracting you?”

There’s a twinkle in Harvey’s eye Mike likes very much. “A little bit.”

“Good to know.”

He turns and bends at the waist, picks up the t-shirt Harvey gave him. Soft, gray, with the logo of some baseball team somewhere in Connecticut. He wonders if there’s a story behind the shirt, or if it’s ironic or something. Mike would bet more on a story. Harvey doesn’t seem the type to wear ironic t-shirts. He slips it on over his head, pulls it down. It smells good, like a brand of laundry soap Mike doesn’t use because all he can afford is the cheap stuff. He reaches down and picks up the pieces of the ill-fitting suit, gathering them in his arms. Burning them seems a bit much, but if they disappeared down a trash chute, he wouldn’t be upset about it.

“Judge, I’m sorry to bother you, but this is important. I need to see you. Now.”

Harvey’s staring, all playfulness gone, and Mike’s suddenly at a loss. What’s going on?

“I’ll call him. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

He hangs up and Mike says, “Harvey, who was that?”

“The judge. I need to go see her. Wait here.”

Harvey slips on his jacket and starts for the front door.

“Wait, what? What’s going on?” 

Harvey opens the door. 

“Harvey!”

“Wait. Here. Do _not_ leave.”

And he shuts the door in Mike’s face, leaving him standing there with a rumpled, borrowed suit in his arms. 

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Once Mike gets over the shock, he finds a garbage bag for the suit in one of Harvey’s kitchen drawers and then takes over where Harvey left off at the cutting board, chopping up some basil, putting a pot of water on to boil, taking out the ingredients for a cream sauce. Dinner is just about ready when the front door opens and shuts and Harvey appears from around the corner.

“You’re still here.”

“You told me to stay.”

“I did.” He looks around Mike, at the pots and pans on the stove, at the partially full dishwasher full of prep dishes. “You made dinner.”

“I just finished what you started. I figure it’s the least I owe you.”

Harvey pulls off his jacket, drapes it over the bar stool and grabs two beers out of the fridge, popping the tops on both and handing one to Mike.

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

“Your case has been dismissed.” Harvey takes a swallow of the beer and Mike watches his throat work. “All charges have been withdrawn.”

“What?” He sets his bottle down. “How?”

Harvey pauses, his eyes searching Mike’s face. Finally, he says, “I saw your Mark.”

Mike scrubs his hands over his face. “No. _Shit_.”

“It’s a fucking get out of jail free card, Mike. Why didn’t you use it?”

“Because it’s nobody’s goddamn business, that’s why. It doesn’t change anything.”

“Yes it does.”

“No! It doesn’t!” His hand clenches at the counter. This is the last thing he needs – another person treating him like he’s some super special oddity, just because he was born with a stupid mark on his shoulder. “It’s a birthmark, that’s all. It doesn’t make me special. It’s never brought me anything good, and I don’t see anyone beating down the door to find me.”

“Maybe if you’d registered with the Center, they could’ve found you. You haven’t exactly been helping your own cause.”

Mike wants to scream. “When two people meet it shouldn’t be because some government entity has made it happen. It should be because...I don’t know...their elbows bump waiting in line for the subway, or they order the same goddamn drink at a coffee shop or something. It should be chance.”

Harvey steps closer. “Or because one of them walks out a door and finds the other one getting arrested by the police?”

He stops. “...yeah. Something like that.”

“It is your life, Mike. If you don’t want to register with the Center, don’t. But you’re not fucking ordinary, either. And you’re not a screw up. Stop pretending you are.”

In all the stories Mike heard as a boy, the Marked couples always seem to have some sort of ESP, something instinctual that makes them work together seamlessly. They always complement each other. They move mountains, win wars...there’s nothing they can’t do, as long as they’re together. They’ve even been known to soothe pain, calm fears, even from miles away. And Mike, Marked Mike, can’t imagine that at all. There’s someone out there with an identical Mark on the back of their left shoulder, and Mike has always known that whoever they are, they deserve a whole lot better than him. 

“Dinner?”

Mike nods.

He still doesn’t know what to do about Grammy, and that weighs on him, even as the weight of his arrest lifts off, but dinner is good, filling, and Harvey is warm next to him, the lines of their thighs pressed together. When Mike’s finished with his plate, he steals a bit off Harvey’s and Harvey lets him, putting his hand on Mike’s thigh as he leans forward. When Mike goes for seconds Harvey laughs and pushes his plate closer to Mike. Mike gives him a sheepish grin and Harvey angles his body a little closer and lets his hand wander a little higher. He feels good, sitting here like this with Harvey. Warm, fed, safe. 

Harvey squeezes his thigh. “Mike...there’s something I want to show you.”

He looks nervous as he stands, pulls off his polo shirt. Mike’s about to make some wisecrack about having seen a dude’s chest before when Harvey turns, slowly, exposing his back to Mike. 

And sitting there, on the back of his left shoulder, is a Mark. A Mark exactly the same size and shape of Mike’s. 

A crown, deep red, no larger than a quarter.

Mike always wondered why it was in the shape of a crown. He figured maybe it would become obvious when he met his Fated, but he finds it’s no clearer now than it ever was. If he was hoping for some sort of revelation, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to come.

His fingers reach out and stroke the skin around Harvey’s Mark with the barest of touches, and Harvey gasps and clenches under his hand. The Mark feels no different from Mike’s, no different from the rest of Harvey’s skin – if he closed his eyes, it would be only the jolt in his fingers, the rapid fire beating of his heart that would tell him what lay under his fingers. But somehow anyway it’s infinitely more precious, and Mike lets the full flat of his palm rest over it, as if he could soak it up into his own skin. Harvey’s hand comes up to rest on top of Mike’s and presses down, and Mike can feel his quick beating heart pick up even more. How easy it would be to just drop his forehead to rest in the middle of Harvey’s shoulder blades, to bring his arm up and wrap it around Harvey’s waist.

“It’s...I...I have to go.”

He pulls his hand away, picks Trevor’s borrowed loafers up off the floor, and yanks open the front door, leaving it ajar as he runs down the hallway and toward the elevator.

He can’t do this.

He can’t do this.

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

There are no guarantees in life, even for a Marked. No one knows this better than Harvey.

He had it all planned out from the first, blissful moment he realized he could throw a fastball faster and better than anyone else for miles around. It was almost like a gimme – a Fated, playing professional baseball, finding his other half as he pitched his team towards a pennant and eventually, a World Series. How much more fucking cinematic can you get?

And then he blew out his shoulder permanently. 

Harvey will be the first to admit he was a little shit right after it happened – pissed off, feeling sorry for himself, slinging letters in a mail room while he took a break from college because he couldn’t stand to watch his teammates go on without him. He stopped going to the Center, stopped answering their phone calls, couldn’t stand to hear the Center doctors say _I’m sorry, Harvey_ one more time. 

And there was never a Match for him, anyway.

They were alive, whoever they were. That much he knew – his Mark would have turned the inky black of desolation and abandonment long ago otherwise. But that was all he knew. 

He probably would’ve continued on like that forever if it hadn’t been for Jessica giving him a kick in the ass when he needed it. The Center certainly appreciated it, especially when Harvey started showing back up again, and showed it by funding his way through Harvard Law. He hadn’t stopped believing in it, in what it meant to carry his Mark on his shoulder. He just hadn’t believed himself worthy of it.

So he started working to deserve them, whoever they were, and he stopped actively looking for them. He started making a life for himself. He had relationships, though he knew they would never last, because they taught him things, things he could bring to his other half when they finally stepped out from the shadows. He bought an incredible condo, moved over to Pearson Hardman, and became the best damn closer the city had ever seen.

He checked his Mark every day.

Harvey hadn’t thought much about the specifics of who they were, because it was too easy to cast a mental picture in your own mind only to be disappointed when they finally showed up and were nothing like you’d dreamt them to be. One of Harvey’s buddies at the Center was guilty of that – and when he finally found his Other, it caused a permanent wrinkle in their connection that could never be fixed. But he had thought about it, what it could mean if his Other fell out of the norms of a traditional match. 85% of all reported matches were heterosexual, but he always knew there was a chance his wouldn’t be. 

So he wasn’t particularly surprised when he felt a sudden urge to walk out the door at the Chilton and saw a _man_ plastered against the wall, being read his rights.

(He did have a laugh later, though, about the absolute absurdity of it all. A lawyer, running into his One as they’re being arrested. Fucking _hilarious_ sense of humor, the universe has.)

In all the stories, one or both of the pair always seems to just _know_ the minute they see their One. Harvey always thought that was bullshit, played up for the cameras, and he still doesn’t think he’s totally wrong about that. But there was something there, something that told Harvey to follow that man, to find out who he was, to save him. And even if that’s not the bolt of lightning all the stories talk about, it was at the very least a guiding hand.

Harvey’s too smart to ignore an impulse like that.

Mike’s defeated, closed off, wearing someone else’s clothes, and that grates on Harvey. He goes through the motions, puts up the tiniest amount of resistance, then gives up and changes into some of Harvey’s clothes. It’s good to see him out of someone else’s suit, to be the object of Mike’s playfulness, but nothing prepares Harvey for the absolute jolt of _need_ that runs through him when he sees that precious, deep red crown resting high on the back of Mike’s left shoulder.

Harvey picks up the phone immediately because he knows what he has to do. And if Harvey is sorry for the sudden mood change, the playfulness replaced with a wary confusion, he isn’t sorry that he’s about to save Mike.

Judge Anna Walker isn’t happy that he’s pulled her away from dinner with her family, and the assistant D.A. looks more than a little annoyed, but the sooner Harvey gets Mike’s charges dropped, the better.

“This better be good, Harvey.”

“You need to drop the charges.”

He laughs, and it’s harsh, sardonic. “Why in the hell would I do that? He was caught with a _briefcase full of pot_. It’s a slam dunk.”

“Because he’s Marked.”

There’s an immediate stunned hush, and the assistant D.A. sits down on the arm of one of the chairs.

“Harvey, are you sure?”

“I’m sure, your honor.”

“Can you show us his Mark?”

“No, I won’t do that.” Attorney client privilege states Harvey is required to do nothing of the sort – so long as the Center steps in to quietly confirm a Marked’s status. But Harvey knows Mike isn’t listed with the Center, so it can’t be confirmed. Not unless Harvey pulls out the one card he has left. “But I’ll show you mine.”

Harvey slips off his jacket, sets it on the back of the chair.

“Harvey...”

He pulls off his polo shirt, turns around.

He would guess this is the first Mark either of them has seen in person, and it’s likely the last one they’ll ever see. A Mark is private, and aside from a few key people who’ve seen it for key reasons – Harvey’s parents, and the Center’s Guardian, who catalogues and protects the knowledge of all Marks and their owners – Harvey’s Mark is meant for Mike and Mike alone. He’s taken pains over the years to hide it from everyone else. To parade it around as if it were nothing more than a tattoo acquired one drunk night on a whim is an insult to your One. 

But this is not a drunken whim.

He turns back around, pulls his shirt on. “Any record of Mike being arrested or brought into court needs to be removed immediately.”

“He’s your One.”

He nods, turns, walks out the door.

There’s nothing else to be said. Harvey has revealed himself to save Mike, and in the morning, any hint that Mike was handcuffed, arrested, arraigned will be gone. Harvey’s had him released on a centuries-old, seldom used law, and now all he has to do is tell Mike.

But he can’t seem to do it. The minute he walks into the kitchen and sees Mike’s face, sees his white knuckled grip on Harvey’s kitchen counter, he discovers he’s more a coward than he ever thought possible. It’s unfair of him to sit here with Mike, to enjoy the touch of his body on his own, the sound of his laugh, the quirk of his smile, and not tell him something he deserves to know. But Harvey’s waited for this man his whole life, and he needs to be a little selfish.

He gets it now, what the advisors all mean when they say Harvey will feel different. Just knowing Mike is sitting next to him settles something in Harvey’s chest he didn’t know was off-kilter. He feels calmer, more relaxed, more himself than he ever has. And he _wants_ , just... _everything_. But he can’t have any of it, not until Mike knows who Harvey really is, what everything that happened today really means. 

So Harvey stands, pulls off his shirt, turns around.

The moment Mike’s hand touches his Mark, Harvey’s nerve endings explode like fireworks and his lungs seize up. All he wants is for Mike’s hand to stay there, forever. The stories are true, they’re all true, and he wonders if he’ll feel the same when his own hand touches Mike’s Mark, or, even better...how it will feel when Harvey’s hand is on Mike’s shoulder, and Mike’s is on his.

But Mike is suddenly pulling away, running away, and the loss is more painful than the day Harvey threw his final pitch and shredded his shoulder into pieces. He leaves the borrowed suit behind, and takes Harvey’s heart with him.

And Harvey has to let him go. 

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Life returns pretty much to normal, if such a thing is possible. Harvey is great at what he does, and it’s easy enough to walk into work and pretend nothing has changed for him, even if everything has. He doesn’t tell anyone about Mike, because it’s no one’s business but his, and he hires the last guy to show up to the interview as his associate – an out of breath Rick Sorkin, who at least had some acceptable answers to the questions Harvey asked and a mildly interesting story about why he was late. Jessica is happy with that, and shows her appreciation by handing him a pro bono case that he immediately hands off to Rick, who immediately botches it. It takes Harvey stepping in to fix it, though if he’s honest it’s probably what he deserved, since he shoved the case off on someone who wasn’t even remotely ready to handle it. 

Harvey does stop going out on dates. That part of his life has changed.

He just can’t do it in good conscience, knowing Mike is out there. Even if he wants nothing to do with Harvey, with what they are, Harvey can’t knowingly disrespect him like that. So that part has ended. It isn’t a loss, and every time Harvey is required to show up at a client’s dinner or a company party, he has a couple of ladies he can call on who are happy to keep his platonic company, so it all works out without explanation. But Harvey wonders what it would be like if he could finally walk into one of these parties with Mike on his arm, if he could finally show him off the way they both deserve.

“Holly...nice to see you again.”

“You too, Jessica.”

The two ladies embrace, smiling. The sticky heat of summer has faded to be supplanted by the crisp cool of autumn. The ladies keep their coats on, in respect to the weather, and make small talk while Harvey pretends to pay attention.

Holly is always his first choice for functions like this. She’s whip smart, gorgeous, and has a killer sense of humor, and has no problem holding her own no matter who she’s meeting, a must for anyone planning to be in the same room with Jessica. 

She also has zero expectations of Harvey other than a nice time, which makes her perfect. 

“It’s nice to see Holly again.”

Harvey turns his head to look at Jessica and is practically smacked over the head by the less than subtle, significant look on her face. “Is it?”

“She complements you.”

“She’s an accomplished woman.”

She lifts an eyebrow. She thinks she has him nailed, which is so hilariously wrong that Harvey wants to have the moment bronzed for posterity. “I have eyes, Harvey.”

“Yes, you do. Beautiful brown ones.”

Behind Jessica, Harvey can see Holly doing her best to keep her own laugh in. That she’s the only other person who finds this as hilarious as Harvey does just cements how perfect she actually is.

“Mingle. Be charming. Bill Foster and Henry Chamberlain are testing the waters.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “They’re unhappy at Olson and Traeger?”

“I’ve heard a few things. You know what they would mean, Harvey.”

“I do.”

“Good.” She takes a sip of the champagne in her hand. “She really is good for you.”

She’s suddenly so serious that Harvey feels a little guilty for his misdirection. A little guilty, but not much. Mike isn’t here to speak for himself, and Harvey refuses to expose him without his consent. 

“He’s good to me.”

Holly smiles, slips her arm through Harvey’s elbow, and gives him an affectionate peck on the cheek. Jessica gives her a smile before walking away from them toward a waiter, carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres. 

Harvey turns his head, grins when he sees Holly grinning at him. “How’s my brother?”

“Good. Thankful to you for taking me out on the town...giving me a chance to get all dolled up.”

“My pleasure. Thanks again for coming.”

“ _Of course_.” She takes Harvey’s glass from him and finishes his champagne, the twinkle in her eye growing by the moment. “Now...who do you need me to charm?”

It’s late when Harvey drops Holly off at home but Marcus is awake and makes Harvey stay for a beer, kissing his wife hello as she disappears down the hallway and into their bedroom, her heels hanging off her fingers. 

“Holly kicked ass.”

“She always does.”

“You married up.”

Marcus grins around the mouth of the bottle. “You _bet_ I did.”

Marcus and Holly are not Marked, but they have fit from the first moment they met as ten year olds, playing on the same baseball team. Holly was the best player on the team, Marcus was the second best. It was love at first sight. He’s always envied them. 

Harvey’s the one who’s supposed to be special, but around them he feels very, very ordinary.

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

His condo is quiet, empty, dark, and he wastes little time stripping down out of his tux. He’s down to the pants, standing barefoot in his closet, when he hears a knock sound at the front door. He pauses in confusion. It’s going on half past one in the morning. Who the hell would be knocking on his door at one thirty in the morning? Another knock sounds, and he grabs a t-shirt and slips it over his head, walks across the condo, pulls the door open.

“Hi.”

Six months later and he’s still gorgeous, probably more so now that he’s in his own clothes. His hoodie, jeans, and black low top Converse fit him so much better. Harvey bets that if the hoodie comes off, there will be a t-shirt with some band on it Mike was too young to experience live, like the Beatles or the Sex Pistols.

“I interrupted you.” He’s staring at Harvey’s pants now, at his bare feet. “Shit...I’m an idiot...it’s one thirty in the morning. What was I thinking?” 

Harvey pulls the door open further. “Get in here.”

Mike can ignore it, pretend it’s not true, but Harvey’s place is now as much his as Harvey’s. He belongs there, just as he did when he was standing in the middle of Harvey’s living room half a year ago, looking young and lost in that stupid borrowed suit. Harvey wonders if he realizes he’s standing in the exact same spot as he was then, when he was so frustrated, so defeated. He doesn’t look defeated now. He looks nervous.

“Do you want something to drink?”

Harvey’s biological imperative is taking over, his provider instinct kicking in at Mike’s cleanly projected emotions, and he lets it, inwardly a little pleased that nothing has changed in those six months. Harvey is not stupid – he did the math long ago. Herding Mike into his condo was no accident, nor was paying his bail, or tracking down the police station where he was being held and stepping in as his lawyer. Even if Harvey had no idea why he was doing it at the time, his provider instinct took care of that for him. He doesn’t need the Center’s psychologist team to tell him that.

“I need to explain myself.”

Harvey walks back over with two glasses of water, hands Mike one. Mike stares at a minute, then sets it down a little carelessly on the coffee table.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”

“ _Yes. I do_. I don’t need to explain myself to anyone else. The Center, the TV stations, the newspapers... _everyone_ else...they don’t matter. You and me...we’re the only ones who matter. Right?”

Harvey smiles at him softly. “Right.”

“So I need to explain myself to you.” He reaches down for the glass, takes a gulp, unzips his hoodie. He’s wearing a Doors t-shirt. Harvey smiles to himself. “I don’t hate you. I’m not repulsed by you.”

“I never thought you were.”

“I ran out on you.”

“You were also flirting with me.”

He laughs softly, nods. “I was.”

It’s nice, having Mike here again. It smoothes out a knot in Harvey’s stomach, allows the restless, anxious part of him to settle, as if knowing Mike was out there, knowing what he looked like, sounded like, smelled like and not being able to be near him had created an un-scratchable itch under his skin that had finally disappeared. Harvey can see Mike for himself, standing right in front of him, and he’s fine.

“When I put my hand on your Mark-”

“Our Mark.”

“It felt like I’d touched a live wire. It just... _sparked_ under my fingers, and I never wanted to let go. I wanted to leave my hand there forever. And that scared the _shit_ out of me. So I ran.”

The running doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. It hurt Harvey for a moment before he realized how panicked Mike was, how scared. That’s what really hurt. “But you’re back.”

He nods. “Look, I resented what I was, growing up. I hated it. This girl I dated, she saw it one day and the next day she’s walking around school with this fake Mark colored on her hand with a Sharpie and talking about it to anyone who would listen and everyone started treating me differently. And it got really easy, really quick, to be a truant. Funny thing is, she never saw our full Mark, only the bottom half. And she didn’t even put it in the right place. She walked around for an entire semester with a bright red rectangle on her hand.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Yeah.” He laughs softly then shakes his head, as if disagreeing with himself. “She just wanted to be special. She saw it as this great, easy thing, and it’s never been easy for me. Anyone else might have loved her.”

“I wouldn’t have. She exposed you without your consent, removed your choice. I don’t like that.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” He pauses. “My parents are dead.”

The swift change in topic throws Harvey, and all he can think to say is, “I’m sorry.”

He nods almost distractedly, as if he knew Harvey would say that, but that Harvey’s need to say it at all is pointless. “They were killed in a car accident when I was nine, coming back from a class at the Center.”

“Your parents were Marked?”

That would have been astounding. There’s no genetic link to a Mark, not as far as anyone knows, and a Marked being born to a Marked pair is such a rare thing that it’s only happened a handful of times, and not at all in the last hundred years or so. That would have made Mike the rarest of all of them.

“No. They were coming back from a parenting class. The Path of a Marked Child.”

Harvey aches a little to reach forward, to hold onto Mike, to ground him, to ground and soothe himself. How could he see his Mark as something special, how could he see himself as someone special, when it had a hand in taking his parents away? No wonder he’s so scared.

“The Center didn’t know who you were?”

“I was nine. And when it came time to register at thirteen, I just...didn’t. Even when Jen exposed me in high school, they left me alone.”

It makes sense – the Center wouldn’t have interfered. Not when Mike was a child, because they’ve always maintained that a Marked child deserves their childhood. They would have intervened only if Mike had been orphaned and even then, they would have done it quietly so no one – Mike especially – knew they’d had a hand in it.

“Even when you were a teenager?”

“Not a word.” He laughs a little. “I mean...I’m sure they knew exactly who I was, where I was all the time. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had a tail every time I skipped school and took the train into Manhattan.”

Harvey wouldn’t be surprised either, actually. 

“Have to protect the future, right? I probably had a tail until I went to college. They should have kept tailing me. That might’ve turned out better for me.”

He shifts, seems to be warring with himself for a moment about something, then abruptly drops to sit on the coffee table in front of Harvey, their knees just barely brushing. Mike leans forward, his forearms on his thighs, drops his head down. It would be nothing for Harvey to reach forward, to card a hand through Mike’s hair, to soothe him with fingers brushing along the back of his neck.

“I was really, really scared.” He lifts his head, eyes immediately seeking Harvey’s. “I didn’t deserve you. And I couldn’t stick around, get further into it with you. Because if I did, I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk away. And I needed to walk away.”

It hurts, to hear Mike say that. To hear him talk about himself like that. And Harvey realizes this is the part they don’t explain because they can’t: Mike was hurting, Mike was desperate and afraid and Harvey’s job was to let him be. To not go after him, even though he wanted to pull him back inside, into the safety of _them_. 

“It hurt you, I hurt you. And I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me.”

“Even if you don’t need to hear it, I need to say it.” 

Harvey inclines his head. His acceptance is what Mike needs, so he gives it to him, even if Harvey feels it’s unnecessary.

“I registered with the Center. I’m back in school. Columbia. That’s what being Marked gets you, I guess...a shitload of pull.”

It’s an advantage, for sure. One phone call, and Mike was probably registered for all the classes he needed, all fees waived. It’s a status symbol, an exclusive club. Columbia probably foamed at the mouth when they got the phone call.

“And I haven’t talked to Trevor in six months. I told him I couldn’t have him in my life anymore.”

So that’s his name, the owner of the too large suit, the one who so willingly handed over a briefcase of drugs so Mike could take the fall. It hurt Mike to do it, he can tell. They’d probably been friends a long time, and Mike had loved him, trusted him enough to take that briefcase even if everything inside him said it was a fucking terrible idea. Still, Harvey has a hard time hating him. Mike wouldn’t have needed Harvey otherwise. Trevor, unknowingly, sent Mike straight to his Soulmate, straight into Harvey’s more than willing arms.

“I didn’t deserve you. I’m working on that.”

“Mike,” He says it softly, sets down his glass and reaches forward, slides his hand around the back of Mike neck and pulls him forward gently, so their foreheads are touching. Mike’s breath is warm against his lips. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again, do you understand me?”

Mike nods against him, relaxing into Harvey. 

“I don’t...I don’t know where to go from this.”

Harvey nuzzles his cheek, brings a hand up to wrap around Mike’s back. “We go as slow or as fast as you like. You set the pace.”

Mike leans forward into Harvey, wraps his arms around Harvey’s back, his face now in Harvey’s neck. They sit that way for a few minutes, and Harvey relishes the soft, calming feeling of Mike in his arms, breathing, happy.

Mike finally speaks, and his voice is soft when he asks, “Harvey?”

Harvey hums a response as his arms tighten around Mike, his cheek resting on Mike’s head.

He’s whispering, his voice the only sound in early morning darkness. “They don’t tell you this part.”

“Which part?”

“How good it feels just to be held.”

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

“So...Mike.”

Harvey pauses, the mouth of his bottle at his lips. “Are you trying to say something, Marcus?”

He shakes his head vehemently. “No. Shit... _no_. Just that...I get it. I do. I see it.” He sighs. “I didn’t get it, when we were younger. But seeing the two of you, meeting Mike...I get it now. I do. The two of you are just... _one_. I don’t know how else to say it.”

He takes a frustrated gulp of his beer, arms resting on the picnic table. 

“The universe got it right, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. It knew what the hell it was doing.”

Harvey looks out at Mike, running around in the grass in his bare feet with Holly, chasing Harvey’s three year old niece Annabelle around while she giggles and squeals. She took to Mike right away, hasn’t left his side since. She adores him, called him her new favorite person, something her mother agreed with right away. Smart ladies. 

“Yeah, it did.”

“I guess the thing is, I used to wonder what they’d be like, you know?”

Harvey turns his head to find Marcus looking at him. He didn’t know that. 

Harvey being Marked wasn’t something they ever really talked about when they were growing up. Marcus always knew Harvey had one of course, but other than that, Harvey figured it rarely crossed his brother’s mind. It wasn’t something he had to live with, no huge expectations hovering over his head constantly.

“I always wondered if it would change you. Make you different somehow. But you’re the same.”

“You really expected me to change? To become someone else?”

“Yes...no. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve seen the movies, read the stories. We all have.” He sighs. “...I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Mike laughs as he catches up to Annabelle and lifts her in the air, blowing loud raspberries on her belly. She giggles and squeals, pleads for her Uncle Mike to stop as her mother joins in, tickling her on her sides.

“You’re still just my brother. It’s fucking with my head a little bit.” Harvey can feel Marcus’ eyes on him, watching him. “Have you decided if you’re going to go public?”

“We will eventually. When Mike is ready.”

It used to be a lot easier to hide what you were and stay hidden. There was no internet, no TV, no paparazzi. Nothing really stays hidden anymore, not with the entire world obsessed with finding the next set of Soulmates. You either stay in front of it, control your debut as much as you can, or run the risk of letting it run away from you, letting the TV stations, the newspapers, the bloggers control your story.

But Mike isn’t ready. And Harvey won’t force him.

“I think I’m a little in love with him, by the way.”

“I don’t blame you.” Harvey grins. “I’m a little in love with Holly.”

Marcus scoffs. “Of course you are.” He sobers, says, “Thank fuck the universe finally got its act together.”

Harvey clinks the neck of his bottle against his brother’s, tilts his head back, downs what’s left. Yes. Thank fuck.

“I’m never going to see your Mark, am I?” 

Harvey looks over at him and he laughs softly, shakes his head at himself.

“Forget it. What a stupid fucking question. I don’t even want to see it. I don’t know why I asked.”

“Curiosity.”

“You’re not a curiosity. You’re my brother. And it’s none of my goddamn business.” 

And just like that Harvey knows Marcus will never ask again.

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

“I’m planning to kidnap Annabelle, I think you should know that.”

Harvey flips the page in his book. “I think her parents might have something to say about that.”

Mike makes a non-committal noise, puts the toothbrush back in his mouth as he wanders back into the bathroom in his underwear. He brushes his teeth too hard. 

“We haven’t talked about it, but do you want kids?”

Mike pokes his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush held tight in his right hand. He has toothpaste foam in the corners of his mouth. He seems to hesitate for a moment before he says, almost offhandedly, “Did you hear scientists at the Center were able to make an embryo from the eggs of a female Soulmate pair?”

“I did.”

“Interesting, right?”

Harvey hums. “Do you want kids, Mike?”

Harvey does, but if Mike doesn’t, he could live with that. Mike is good with them, from what he’s seen, but loving one little girl doesn’t translate to all kids.

“In general? I don’t know. With you? Yeah.” He brushes a little, soft circles this time. More an absentminded tic than actual brushing, Harvey thinks. He pulls the brush out of his mouth again and pauses before he adds, “But not right now.”

Same page then. Harvey nods, and Mike gives him a little smile before he disappears back into the bathroom and Harvey can hear him quietly spitting into the sink, the sink turning on.

“I called a realtor today.”

He comes back out of the bathroom, flips off the light. “Why? You love your place.”

“I believe you just answered your own question.”

Mike climbs up onto the bed, straddles Harvey’s thighs as if that’s what he’s done every night since he walked back in the door. It isn’t, and Harvey feels a pleasant flip in his stomach as Mike sits back on Harvey’s thighs, as he takes Harvey’s book and sets it off to the side, as Harvey’s own hands come to rest on Mike’s hips.

“ _Harvey_.”

“This was my place. It was meant for the me before you. We need a home that belongs to the both of us.”

Mike brings his hands up to cup Harvey’s jaw, and his eyes drop to Harvey’s lips briefly. Harvey’s thumbs rub circles into Mike’s hips. “God, you’re such a sweet talker. I bet you’re amazing in court.”

“I am.”

Mike’s laugh is bright, and it practically bubbles out of him as he throws his head back almost disbelievingly. Harvey grins and relishes the long, exposed line of Mike’s neck, the sharp angle of his jaw, bringing up a thumb to run over his Adam’s apple. Mike shivers under his touch. 

“Such humility.”

Harvey leans forward but stops just short of kissing him, lips hovering over his. “You want me to be humble?”

It’s only been a week since Mike resurfaced with his heart in his throat, and his life is already embedded in Harvey’s. His things are everywhere. There’s shit in the fridge Harvey would never buy for himself, pictures of people Harvey’s never met on side tables and end tables and above the fireplace, dinner waiting for him every night when he gets home, Mike’s clothes mixed in with his in the closet. Mike has met the only members of his family worth knowing, he’ll meet Harvey’s personal Patron Saint of Lost Causes in a few days when Jessica comes over for dinner, and Harvey and Mike are taking brunch to Grammy tomorrow. 

Donna? He’s not telling her at all. He thinks maybe he’ll surprise the shit out of her one day by asking Mike to call and introduce himself. She’ll die when she realizes she never saw it coming. And Harvey will never let her forget it.

“I’d never ask you to be someone you’re not.”

His cheeky grin does Harvey in, and Harvey slides a hand to the back of Mike’s head and takes his mouth. Mike responds with eagerness, a hand coming up to brace on the wall behind Harvey, rolling his hips just a little.

Harvey slides a hand down Mike’s body, slips fingers and palm beneath the waistband of his underwear to cup his ass. Mike makes a wonderfully needy noise in the back of his throat and pulls his lips off Harvey’s, bending back to roughly shove at his underwear. It’s awkward, because Mike doesn’t show much interest in moving from his current position, so the underwear stays wrapped around his thighs. Harvey laughs then takes pity on him, helping him out of them before slipping his own off. Mike grins, lowers himself back down, sucks in a breath when their cocks brush _just right_.

Mike’s kisses are demanding and Harvey takes them all, lets Mike be in the driver’s seat, only breaking off when he needs to breathe. He trails kisses down one side of his jaw and up the other and Mike grasps his hair and brings their mouths back together when he decides Harvey is taking too long. Harvey laughs and Mike bites at his lower lip, and Harvey reaches down between them and takes them both in hand. Harvey’s knuckles brush Mike’s stomach with every tug, every twist of the wrist, and soon Mike’s hips start moving in earnest. Harvey’s hand falls away and reaches over to grab Mike’s ass, encouraging his every thrust, every snap of his hips making Harvey’s heart pick up speed. 

It isn’t planned, his hand reaching up toward Mike’s left shoulder with every thrust. But like everything else having to do with Mike, planning has very little to do with it. 

The moment his fingers come in contact with the Mark on Mike’s skin, Harvey knows exactly what Mike meant when he called it a live wire. It’s like a shock to the system, the nerve endings in his arm suddenly alight, _alive_.

Mike gasps and pulls back and their eyes meet, chests heaving.

His eyes are wide, and he can barely get the words out. “So that’s what it feels like. _Fuck_.” 

His hand reaches back and clumsily grasps for Harvey’s hand, pushing the flat of it against his Mark as he closes his eyes and drops his head back, hips moving harder, faster.

“I’m so sorry, Harvey. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t _know_.”

Harvey’s hand grabs his chin, forces Mike to look at him. “Hey...what did I say? Don’t ever apologize for that.”

“How did you manage to let me walk away?”

“You needed to.”

Mike groans. “Oh... _fuck_.”

His hands come up and cradle Harvey’s face and he kisses him so tenderly, with such sweetness and affection, such feeling, that Harvey completely misses Mike’s hand curling over the back of his shoulder to rest on his Mark.

And _oh God_ this is _everything_.

No one ever described it because they couldn’t. They couldn’t possibly imagine this. It isn’t just fire or electricity or lightning, somehow it’s all of those but none of them. It’s...it’s _love_ , but it isn’t all coming from him. He can _feel_ Mike’s love for him, reaching out, holding him like it’s a physical thing, and he knows Mike is feeling exactly what he’s feeling. Every single extra beat of his heart, every exploding nerve ending, they’re sharing it all. 

And until this moment, he had no idea how deeply Mike’s feelings ran. To know they are both knee deep in this, together, makes everything worth it.

Mike reaches up to brace himself against the wall above Harvey’s head with a trembling hand, matching the tremors in Harvey’s own hands, and promptly slips, tumbling off the bed and onto the hardwood floor.

It takes Harvey a moment to react. When he finally leans forward and looks over the side of the bed, he finds Mike on the floor on his back, spread eagle, staring up at the ceiling with an open mouth.

“Mike?”

And then he starts to laugh, his shoulders shaking, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, naked, hard. Harvey’s own personal Jesus. “They’re true. _Every single one of those stories_. They’re true. I can’t fucking believe it.”

Their story will be written down, eventually. All the Soulmates who survive and find each other, the ones who live long lives together, have their stories written. Harvey can just imagine how it will go, how serendipitous their writer will make it seem, the creative license they’ll employ, the things they’ll get wrong because they just won’t have all the details. There will be some things they won’t ever be told, things they don’t deserve to know, things that are just Mike and Harvey’s. But it will be written, and before long their story will become another Fated’s favorite bedtime story. Maybe they’ll believe it, maybe they’ll think it’s just a great story. Either way, it’ll be true.

Mostly.

The rest belongs to Harvey and Mike.


End file.
